Anonymous Christians
I had an interesting conversation with a colleague of mine the other day about the idea of Anonymous Christianity. Frankly, I had never heard of this before, and in my ignorance I assumed that the idea must simply be yet another version of pluralism. But it did spark my interest, so I began to do some reading on the Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner and his teachings.
Rahner wants to make clear that in the end, Christ is the ultimate and final source of all grace and salvation. Yet, salvation, while ultimately coming through Christ, can be experienced by non-Christians. Since all grace ultimately comes from Christ, those in other religions who are experiencing the grace of God are linked to Christ. They are encountering salvation through that grace and are thus Christians without knowing about Christ. It is from this argument that Rahner coins the phrase -Anonymous Christian.-
"Anonymous Christianity means that a person lives in the grace of God and attains salvation outside of explicitly constituted Christianity… Let us say, a Buddhist monk… who, because he follows his conscience, attains salvation and lives in the grace of God; of him I must say that he is an anonymous Christian; if not, I would have to presuppose that there is a genuine path to salvation that really attains that goal, but that simply has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. But I cannot do that. And so, if I hold if everyone depends upon Jesus Christ for salvation, and if at the same time I hold that many live in the world who have not expressly recognized Jesus Christ, then there remains in my opinion nothing else but to take up this postulate of an anonymous Christianity." (Karl Rahner in Dialogue, p. 135)
All my life I’ve been taught that the Christian faith is the way to salvation. But, for the non-Christian child who, through no fault of his own, either tragically dies at an early age or lives out his life detached from the Christian church/ teachings of Christ because of an oppressive culture/ society- yet embraces a righteous life and adheres to the same ethical and moral principals that Christ taught …how can he/ she be denied salvation? It's instances like this that I crave to comprehend God's ultimate plan. This book excerpt entitled “Isn’t It Sad that Gandhi is Burning in Hell?” indirectly addresses Rahner's teachings.
I had an interesting conversation with a colleague of mine the other day about the idea of Anonymous Christianity. Frankly, I had never heard of this before, and in my ignorance I assumed that the idea must simply be yet another version of pluralism. But it did spark my interest, so I began to do some reading on the Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner and his teachings.
Rahner wants to make clear that in the end, Christ is the ultimate and final source of all grace and salvation. Yet, salvation, while ultimately coming through Christ, can be experienced by non-Christians. Since all grace ultimately comes from Christ, those in other religions who are experiencing the grace of God are linked to Christ. They are encountering salvation through that grace and are thus Christians without knowing about Christ. It is from this argument that Rahner coins the phrase -Anonymous Christian.-
"Anonymous Christianity means that a person lives in the grace of God and attains salvation outside of explicitly constituted Christianity… Let us say, a Buddhist monk… who, because he follows his conscience, attains salvation and lives in the grace of God; of him I must say that he is an anonymous Christian; if not, I would have to presuppose that there is a genuine path to salvation that really attains that goal, but that simply has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. But I cannot do that. And so, if I hold if everyone depends upon Jesus Christ for salvation, and if at the same time I hold that many live in the world who have not expressly recognized Jesus Christ, then there remains in my opinion nothing else but to take up this postulate of an anonymous Christianity." (Karl Rahner in Dialogue, p. 135)
All my life I’ve been taught that the Christian faith is the way to salvation. But, for the non-Christian child who, through no fault of his own, either tragically dies at an early age or lives out his life detached from the Christian church/ teachings of Christ because of an oppressive culture/ society- yet embraces a righteous life and adheres to the same ethical and moral principals that Christ taught …how can he/ she be denied salvation? It's instances like this that I crave to comprehend God's ultimate plan. This book excerpt entitled “Isn’t It Sad that Gandhi is Burning in Hell?” indirectly addresses Rahner's teachings.
2 comments:
"Salvation for Non-Christians Explained Sola Scriptura":
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0302fea3.asp
Interesting read...especially this segment...
This is biblical evidence that God does indeed care for those who appear to have no hope of salvation. Of course, as Paul notes in Romans 1, many of the Gentiles were wicked and rebelled against the knowledge of God they did have and therefore received God’s just punishment (likewise with the Jews who rejected the knowledge they had of God).
Paul distinguishes between three kinds of people. Those who knowingly reject God receive God’s condemnation (Rom. 1:18–21). Those who try a do-it-yourself way of salvation through following the law will be judged by the law and condemned, since they fail to keep the law perfectly (Gal 3:10, Rom. 3:20, Gal. 5:3). Both of these groups of people have rejected the merciful initiative of God’s grace in offering them salvation.
There is the third group, which actively seeks God and finds salvation in him (Acts 17 says that these can be Gentiles as well as Jews). They are responding to the initiative God makes in anyone’s salvation (John 6:44) by drawing them to himself. Just as people who lived before Christ was revealed didn’t have to know about him specifically to receive salvation, neither do people who have lived since the time of Christ have to specifically know about Christ in order to be saved if he hasn’t been revealed to them yet.
We are speaking here of those who through no fault of their own have no way of knowing of Christ or have not heard of him in a way that they can clearly understand who he is. If God commanded explicit faith in Christ and baptism as the only ways to be saved—even for those who have no way of knowing about Christ—then he would be commanding such people to do something they’re not capable of doing. This would be unjust and incompatible with his character. God doesn’t give us commands that we are not capable of obeying.
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